‘The Moro Affair’: Astonishingly original, but not quite a story

I must admit I don’t have much love for musical theatre – not in a holier-than-thee (not thou) sort of way, as I assure you I have significantly less love for opera – but simply on the basis that I am a great lover of stories, and I find that songs are usually an obstacle to the momentum of an unfolding plot. So, when reading this review, bear in mind that as a story-loving, musical-hating, easily-bored theatre-goer, I am quite possibly the worst person in the world to review this play.

The Moro Affair is an original musical, whose script and songs were, to my great admiration, written entirely by Magdalen College’s Alex Rawnsley. When asked for a summary of the play’s plot, Rawnsley told me: “This play is based on a real event which happened in 1978 where the former Italian Prime Minister, who was the most powerful politician in Italy at the time, gets abducted in broad daylight, and the government just… does nothing. And so it’s a story about how all the different facets of Italian society reacted to that, how it progressed, and whether or not they were successful in rescuing him, basically. That is to give the quickest possible summary of what is quite a complicated plot.”

Rawnsley wrote the script and all the music for it, which I find very impressive. The play was clearly crafted with love, and it showed in how professional it felt. The acting was superb across the board, with Harriet Wilson’s Pope as a standout, and Rosie Sutton’s direction was flawless. Frankly, everything about the production was great, contributing to the aforementioned feeling of professionalism (excepting some dismal lighting in one scene). The songs were funny and well-written, and again very impressive given Alex is a mere student (and a medicine student at that), but admittedly not very catchy – though I may just be a simpleton for wanting them to be. I was impressed, through and through.

But to criticise the play a bit, as is my job, I’ll admit I found it a little boring. It didn’t feel much like a story, on account of the fact the characters kept changing: it was the same 6 actors throughout, but they rotated through an endless rota of NPCs to tell vignette-style anecdotes. And whilst they often returned to their ‘main’ characters, I found it difficult to tell, as nothing about their outfits or composure changed, and they were in any case more like dancing exposition machines than 3-dimensional people. Frankly, the play sometimes felt like a singing history textbook. There was a scene where Moro’s wife and daughter have an argument, which was written very well (and performed superbly by Sophia Lee and Emma Hamilton), but I struggled to feel engaged, as I had never seen these characters interact before in my life.

But whilst I may seem harsh in this criticism, I only do so because of how impressed I was by what I saw overall, and how optimistic I am that Rawnsley and this same team could, with a little extra polish, create something truly special – maybe even a musical classic which gay dramakids will be singing about for years to come. Like Wicked, but good. But then again, what do I know? I don’t like musicals.